Will GMO Crops Save the Planet?

The debate of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), agricultural crops
in particular, has raged for decades. But while the debate has been raging, and
passions flare, GMO plantings are up and we're feeding a growing population
around the world, observes Alex Daley of Casey Research.

Last month, a group of Australian scientists published a warning to the
citizens of the country and of the world who collectively gobble up some $34
billion annually of its agricultural exports. The warning concerned the safety
of a new type of wheat.

As Australia's number-one export, a $6-billion annual industry, and the
most-consumed grain locally, wheat is of the utmost importance to the country. A
serious safety risk from wheat-a mad wheat disease of sorts-would have
disastrous effects for the country and for its customers.

Which is why the alarm bells are being rung over a new variety of wheat being
ushered toward production by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research
Organisation (CSIRO) of Australia. In a sense, the crop is little different than
the wide variety of modern genetically modified foods. A sequence of the plant's
genes has been turned off to change the wheat's natural behavior a bit, to make
it more commercially viable (hardier, higher yielding, slower decaying,
etc.).Franken-Wheat?

What's really different this time-and what has Professor Jack Heinemann of
the University of Canterbury, NZ, and Associate Professor Judy Carman, a
biochemist at Flinders University in Australia, holding press conferences to
garner attention to the subject-is the technique employed to effectuate the
genetic change. It doesn't modify the genes of the wheat plants in question;
instead, a specialized gene blocker interferes with the natural action of the
genes.

The process at issue, dubbed RNA interference or RNAi for short, has been a
hotbed of research activity ever since the Nobel Prize-winning 1997 research
paper that described the process. It is one of a number of so-called "antisense"
technologies that help suppress natural genetic expression and provide a
mechanism for suppressing undesirable genetic behaviors.

RNAi's appeal is simple: it can potentially provide a temporary, reversible
off switch for genes. Unlike most other genetic modification techniques, it
doesn't require making permanent changes to the underlying genome of the target.
Instead, specialized siRNAs-chemical DNA blockers based on the same mechanism
our own bodies use to temporarily turn genes on and off as needed-are delivered
into the target organism and act to block the messages cells use to express a
particular gene. When those messages meet with their chemical opposites, they
turn inert. And when all of the siRNA is used up, the effect wears off.

The new wheat is in early-stage field trials (i.e., it's been planted to grow
somewhere, but has not yet been tested for human consumption), part of a
multi-year process on its way to potential approval and not unlike the rigorous
process many drugs go through. The researchers responsible are using RNAi to
turn down the production of glycogen. They are targeting the production of the
wheat branching enzyme, which if suppressed, would result in a much lower starch
level for the wheat.

The result would be a grain with a lower glycemic index-i.e., healthier
wheat.

This is a noble goal. However, Professors Heinemann and Carman warn, there's
a risk that the gene silencing done to these plants might make its way into
humans and wreak havoc on our bodies. In their press conference and subsequent
papers, they describe the possibility that the siRNA molecules-which are pretty
hardy little chemicals and not easily gotten rid of-could wind up interacting
with our RNA.

If their theories prove true, the results might be as bad as mimicking
glycogen storage disease IV, a super-rare genetic disorder, which almost always
leads to early childhood death.

"Franken-Wheat Causes Massive Deaths from Liver Failure!"

Now that is potentially headline-grabbing stuff. Unfortunately, much of it is
mere speculation at this point, albeit rooted in scientific expertise on the
subject.

What they've produced is a series of opinion papers-not scientific research
nor empirical data to prove that what they suspect might happen, actually does.
They point to the possibilities that could happen if a number of criteria are
met:

.If the siRNAs remain in the wheat in transferrable form, in large
quantities, when the grain makes it to your plate. And.

If the siRNA molecules interfere with the somewhat
different but largely similar human branching enzyme as well.

Then the result might be symptoms similar to such a condition, on some scale
or another, anywhere from completely unnoticeable to highly impactful.

They further postulate that if the same effect is seen in animals, it could
result in devastating ecological impact. Dead bugs and dead wild animals.

Luckily for us, as potential consumers of these foods, all of these are
easily testable theories. And this is precisely the type of data the lengthy
approval process is meant to look at.

Opinion papers like this-while not to be confused with conclusions resulting
from solid research-are a critically important part of the scientific process,
challenging researchers to provide hard data on areas that other experts suspect
could be overlooked. Professors Carman and Heinemann provide a very important
public good in challenging the strength of the due-diligence process for RNAi's
use in agriculture, an incomplete subject we continue to discover more about
every day.

However, we'll have to wait until the data comes back on this particular
experiment-among thousands of similar ones being conducted at government labs,
universities, and in the research facilities of commercial agribusinesses like
Monsanto and Cargill-to know if this wheat variety would in fact result in a
dietary apocalypse.

That's a notion many anti-genetically modified organism (GMO) pundits seem to
have latched onto following the press conference the professors held. But if the
history of modern agriculture can teach us anything, it's that far more
aggressive forms of GMO foods appear to have had a huge net positive effect on
the global economy and our lives. Not only have they not killed us, in many ways
GMO foods have been responsible for the massive increases in public health and
quality of life around the world.

The Past Isn't Prologue

The science of GM food has advanced considerably since the dark ages of the
1920s. Previous versions of mutation breeding were akin to trying to fix a pair
of eyeglasses with a sledgehammer-messy and imprecise, with rare positive
results. And the outputs of those experiments were often foisted upon a public
without any knowledge or understanding of what they were consuming.

Modern-day GM foods are produced with a much more precise toolset, which
means less unintended collateral damage. Of course it also opens up a veritable
Pandora's box of new possibilities (glow-in-the-dark corn, anyone?) and with it
a whole host of potential new risks. Like any sufficiently powerful technology,
such as the radiation and harsh chemicals used in prior generations of mutation
breeding, without careful control over its use, the results can be devastating.
This fact is only outweighed by the massive improvements over the prior, messier
generation of techniques.

And thus, regulatory regimes from the FDA to CSIRO to the European Food
Safety Authority (EFSA) are taking increasing steps to ensure that GM foods are
thoroughly tested long before they come to market. In many ways, the tests are
far more rigorous than those that prescription drugs undergo, as the target
population is not sick and in need of urgent care, and for which side effects
can be tolerated. This is why a great many of the proposed GM foods of the last
20 years, including the controversial "suicide seeds" meant to protect the
intellectual property of the large GM seed producers like Monsanto (which bought
out Calgene, the inventor of that Flavr Savr tomato, and is now the 800-lb.
gorilla of the GM food business), were never allowed to market.

Still, with the 15 years from 1996 to 2011 seeing a 96-fold increase in the
amount of land dedicated to growing GM crops and the incalculable success of the
generations of pre-transgenic mutants before them, scientists and corporations
are still in a mad sprint to find the next billion-dollar GM blockbuster.

In doing so they are seeking tools that make the discovery of such
breakthroughs faster and more reliable. With RNAi, they may just have found one
such tool. If it holds true to its laboratory promises, its benefits will be
obvious from all sides.

Unlike previous generations of GMO, RNAi-treated crops do not need to be
permanently modified. This means that mutations, which outlive their usefulness,
like resistance to a plague, which is eradicated, do not need to live on
forever. This allows companies to be more responsive, and potentially provides a
big relief to consumers concerned about the implications of eating foods with
permanent genetic modifications.

The simple science of creating RNAi molecules is also attractive to people
who develop these new agricultural products, as once a messenger RNA is
identified, there is a precise formula to tell you exactly how to shut it off,
potentially saving millions or even billions of dollars that would be spent in
the research lab trying to figure out exactly how to affect a particular genetic
process.

And with the temporary nature of the technique, both the farmers and the
Monsantos of the world can breathe easily over the huge intellectual-property
questions of how to deal with genetically altered seeds. Not to mention the
questions of natural spread of strains between farms who might not want GMO
crops in their midst. Instead of needing to engineer in complex genetic
functions to ensure progeny don't pass down enhancements for free and that black
markets in GMO seeds don't flourish, the economic equation becomes as simple as
fertilizer: use it or don't.

While RNAi is not a panacea for GMO scientists-it serves as an off switch,
but cannot add new traits nor even turn on dormant ones-the dawn of antisense
techniques is likely to mean an even further acceleration of the science of
genetic meddling in agriculture. Its tools are more precise even than many of
the most recent permanent genetic-modification methods. And the temporary nature
of the technique-the ability to apply it selectively as needed versus breeding
it directly into plants which may not benefit from the change decades on-is sure
to please farmers, and maybe even consumers as well.

That is, unless the scientists in Australia are proven correct, and the
siRNAs used in experiments today make their way into humans and affect the same
genetic functions in us as they do in the plants. The science behind their
assertions still needs a great deal of testing. Much of their assertion defies
the basic understanding of how siRNA molecules are delivered-an incredibly
difficult and delicate process that has been the subject of hundreds of millions
of dollars of research thus far, and still remains, thanks to our incredible
immune systems, a daunting challenge in front of one of the most promising forms
of medicine (and now of farming too).

Still, their perspective is important food for thought...and likely fuel for
much more debate to come. After all, even if you must label your products as
containing GMO-derived ingredients, does that apply if you just treated an
otherwise normal plant with a temporary, consumable, genetic on or off switch?
In theory, the plant which ends up on your plate is once again genetically no
different than the one which would have been on your plate had no siRNAs been
used during its formative stages.

One thing is sure: the GMO food train left the station nearly a century ago
and is now a very big business that will continue to grow and to innovate, using
RNAi and other techniques to come.